
- Sets out the latest trends in raids by competition authorities in different jurisdictions.
- Explains how modern working practices affect liability for both companies and employees.
The scene of the crime. An FBI windbreaker, a door being broken down, a detective jaded by a broken system, shouting, ‘This is a raid!’ while furtive criminals rush to escape. Popular culture paints a vivid picture that springs to mind whenever discussing a ‘raid’. Though dawn raids by competition authorities lack such cinematic flair, they keep the drama. Even minor mistakes may snowball into significant fines.
Post-pandemic, dawn raids are back, and authorities around the world have not shied away from using their powers to the full extent.
Dawn raids continue to be daunting experiences: fast-moving and data-intensive processes that companies can never be sufficiently ready for, and where even the most trivial-seeming procedural irregularity carries a several-million-euro price tag, regardless of any underlying competition law breaches.
As history shows,